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Daily Mail
8 hours ago
- Sport
- Daily Mail
THE MOUSE WHO ROARED! McLauchlan shone from Tarbolton to Dunedin... and back again
There was an added sense of poignancy that news of Ian 'Mighty Mouse' McLauchlan's sad passing should arrive just as the latest batch of British and Irish Lions were jetting off on this summer's adventure to Australia. McLauchlan, who died on Friday aged 83, was considered one of the toughest and feistiest players to ever pull on a Scotland jersey, something he did 43 times between 1969 and 1979. It was his performances for the Lions, however, that elevated the Ayrshire-born prop's reputation and brought him to wider recognition, something he did with distinction over two tours of duty. The first came in 1971 when a group that included Welsh great JPR Williams and Irish icon Willie John McBride won two games out of four and drew the final one to secure what remains the Lions' only series victory in New Zealand. McLauchlan played a pivotal role in the first Test in Dunedin, charging down an attempted All Blacks clearance to score the only try of the game. Perhaps surprisingly for a player who scored frequently in the club game, it also turned out to be the only Test try of his career. McLauchlan was back in the fold three years later when the touring party, now captained by McBride, won 21 of the 22 matches they played in South Africa and drew the last one to earn the nickname 'The Invincibles'. It was a physically bruising, often violent tour but the Lions proved too strong for their Springbok hosts as they clinched the Test series by three matches to one. McLauchlan was again pivotal, playing in every Test match just as he had done in New Zealand, making him one of just five players to be ever-present across the two victorious series. International rugby had come late to the man from the Ayrshire village of Tarbolton, not a renowned stronghold for the sport. When he made his Scotland debut a month short of his 27th birthday in an 8-3 Five Nations loss to England at Twickenham in March 1969, he became the first former pupil of Ayr Academy and ex-Jordanhill College student to be capped for his country. 'Much of that day is a haze but I remember sitting in the changing room at 2.50pm,' he wrote in his autobiography, Mighty Mouse. ''Open the doors', I thought. 'Let me get out there and at them'. I had waited all my life for that moment.' McLauchlan wasn't big for a loosehead at under 15 stone and just 5ft8 tall but what he lacked in physical stature he made up for with tenacity and determination, in the scrum especially where he would regularly give his tighthead opponent a difficult afternoon. His club performances for Jordanhill and West of Scotland brought him belatedly to the attention of the Scotland selectors — six years after his first trial — starting a decade-long period of international recognition where he'd go on to establish himself in the team before becoming captain in 1973. He would lead his country 19 times, an achievement that stood as a record until it was later surpassed by David Sole. On one of those occasions, another Calcutta Cup clash with the Auld Enemy, he captained the team despite having broken a bone in his leg against Ireland just a fortnight earlier. Although he came from a corner of the country where football, racing pigeons and whippets were the favoured pastimes, McLauchlan would become a rugby obsessive. 'I was hooked straight away,' he admitted. 'I loved the physicality, the brutality and the camaraderie of it. Before long, the game had become the be-all and end-all of my life. 'I never wanted to give up. I played every minute I could play. I used to go down to Wales mid-week and play. I'd go to Ireland at the weekends and play on the Sunday. At that time Scottish Rugby had a ban on Sunday rugby but it didn't seem to matter too much in Ireland. It was quite good. You'd play in Glasgow and get the six o'clock plane to Dublin and come back on the Sunday night.' The 1970s were not a hugely memorable period for Scottish rugby overall, with the unlikely five-way tie in 1973 the only championship Scotland celebrated throughout the decade. The feeling was, though, that it could have been even worse had McLauchlan not done his best to lift the level through both word and deed until his international retirement in 1979, again with another Test match against the All Blacks, this time at Murrayfield. He worked as a PE teacher at Broughton High School in Edinburgh, launched his own marketing firm and even had a brief spell in journalism but rugby remained in the blood, making it little surprise that he would continue to contribute to the sport later in life. He served as president of Scottish Rugby from 2010 to 2012 and remained on the board until 2019. 'I've always been involved in rugby in one way or another,' he said at the time. 'I suppose it kind of appealed to my sense of humour, the thought of being on the board. 'It's like everything else. I just wanted to do something to help rugby. It's a plain, simple fact: if you don't do anything, you don't get much from it — but if you try to do something you get a great deal of self-satisfaction and reward comes from effort.' McLauchlan would fill other rugby roles, too, chairing the British and Irish Lions Trust, becoming a director of European Professional Club Rugby, chair of the Murrayfield Injured Players Foundation and a director of the Hearts & Balls rugby charity. In 2013 he was inducted into Scottish Rugby's Hall of Fame and four years later received an OBE for services to rugby. Later in life he moved from the Corstorphine area of Edinburgh to settle on Islay where his wife Eileen, who died in 2023, hailed from. News of McLauchlan's sad passing prompted tributes from all across the rugby world, including from former team-mate — and another Lions and Scotland legend — Andy Irvine. 'He was some character and some player,' said Irvine. 'He was smaller than most props he came up against but I never saw anyone get the better of him. He was so tough, almost indestructible. What a fantastic career he had for Scotland and the Lions. It's very, very sad.' The sad news broke just as Lions head coach Andy Farrell and his players were boarding the plane to Australia ahead of their Test series against the Wallabies. They paid tribute to one of their own: 'Our thoughts are with the friends and family of former Scotland captain and Lions great Ian McLauchlan.'
BBC News
10-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Wales rugby: Iconic 1973 JPR Williams rugby shirt sells for £27k
A rugby jersey worn by the late Wales legend JPR Williams in what is considered one of the sport's greatest ever games has been auctioned off for £27, jersey was worn in the Barbarians' 1973 match against the All Blacks, in which Williams was instrumental in this famous 23-11 Wales and Lions full-back, died in January 2024 aged 74, was an icon of Wales' dominance of the 1970s, winning three Five Nations Grand Rogers Jones and Co described him as "a revolutionary player who changed the way full backs played the beautiful game". The jersey was worn by Williams in the 1973 fixture - during which Sir Gareth Edwards scored one of the most memorable tries in formed part of a collection of items sold at an auction on Thursday. It was a "white glove sale", meaning all of the items were successfully sold, and auctioneer Ben Rogers Jones said it was "a special honour and privilege" to coordinate."JPR Williams was one of my heroes, as he was to so many others," he said."There was interest from across the rugby playing nations and we are delighted to have achieved some fantastic prices." Mr Rogers Jones added that, while Edwards' try was well-documented, "it is sometimes overlooked that JPR scored the crucial try to clinch the match for the Baa-baas", making the jersey "an important item of sporting memorabilia"."We were so pleased that, at the auction, JPR's performance that day wasn't overlooked as the price soared to £27,500 with a bidder on the phone in London winning the top prize," he collection sold to a global audience, with buyers in Australia, Switzerland and France, as well as Wales and across the UK.
